Mr. C. was telling his students about a recent moon landing by Russian cosmonauts. He proceeded to ask the class:

"Why do they float while they are in space?"

His student, Mike, raised his hand like a lightning bolt, and, like the unruly immature student that he is, screamed out:

"You'd have to be retarded to not get this one!"

Mr. C. then asked him (after reprimanding him for such an offensive comment about mentally challenged people) what the answer was, if it was so easy.

Mike responded:

"They float because there is ABSOLUTELY NO GRAVITY in space."

Mike was absolutely shocked when Mr. C said:

"WRONG! Oy, I thought this was supposed to be the Talented and Gifted class!"

Why was Mike wrong?

Answer

Mike was wrong because there is gravity in space, especially from here to the moon. The reason why the cosmonauts appear to float is that they are traveling at the same velocity as the spacecraft they are in and are weightless with respect to their ship. The earth's pull of gravity is reduced as they travel towards the moon, but there is still some.

The gravity that bodies create extends beyond their surface, and it only gets weaker the farther out it goes.Hide

Just a word to the person who posted the note about gravitational influences - if you are learning about that, you should read a Brief History of Time. Somewhere in there it mentions about how if a being approached a black hole, they would be instantly reduced to matter and energy. Then again, because of the gravitational influences that cause time to stop, that would never happen!

Very good trivia quiz, but was the background information about retarded people necessary? Was it really relevant to the question? I'm sure this quiz would have had the same impact had it been reworded slightly. Just a thought.